By Ryan Broderick
Attention to anyone picking up this article, much of this will sound like complete and utter gibberish to anyone not familiar with "Against Me!" or its members. Tom Gabel, "Against Me!'s" frontman, released a solo CD, "Heart Burns," and it doesn't open like one would expect. One would expect a Gabel CD to open up with clangy major chords and a rough voiced Gabel screaming about punk rock or how it's dead or something.
What you don't expect are drum machine handclaps and flanged vocals. The result of the CD's opening two tracks is jarring, but they aren't horrible. The CD really hits its stride as far as becoming a letdown somewhere in the middle.
It's easy to assume that the news of "Against Me!'s" front man putting up a solo disc might have inspired some cheers and cocked eyes of suspicion. With all the new press "Against Me!" has achieved with the release of their CD "New Wave," it was an exciting thing to discover that Gabel was taking a bit of time to write his own stuff. But the result of his months alone in the studio wasn't a "As The Eternal Cowboy" Pt. 2, it was instead something far more mediocre.
And again, it wasn't the technical experimenting and the questionable instrumentation. "Heat Burns" suffers from lack originality. Every song sounds like a B-side thrown out because it sounded too much like a Bruce Springsteen cover band. After the first few tracks, Gabel goes back to what he's been good at, and finishes the second half of the album with acoustic guitars, harmonicas and attempts at "americana".
What's missing and hurting from "Heart Burns" like a musical phantom limb is the grit and rough edges that have not only added wonderful depth to the token simplicity of "Against Me!," but have become part of their sound. To put it insanely bluntly, Gabel shouldn't sound like he invested any money in how he makes records. His records need to sound like the floated through a crappy condenser mic hanging from the ceiling of some dive bar in Florida.
Another piece missing from "Heart Burns" are lyrics that a listener can get behind and hold on to. With such a clean recording quality, Gabel's singing comes off uneven and especially flimsy. On "Anna Was A Stool Pigeon" he sings: "Eric fell in love with an FBI informant/ Shared his dreams of revolution/ Now he's sitting in solitary confinement" just come off sounding kind of stupid and nonsensical.
On this new album there's a feeling that Gabel is trying to invigorate his musical, unfortunately a lot of sounds cheesy overproduced. "Heart Burns" unfortunately doesn't live up to what it could be. Anyone expecting to hear a angry version of the Mountain Goats or something even like "Against Me!'s" acoustic CD look elsewhere. Instead, it seems like Gabel might have actually "Lost Touch."
2 Stars